Vote Expected Today

Baseball

The Sale Of The Marlins Should Be Approved During A Conference Call.

February 12, 2002|By Sarah Talalay, Baseball Correspondent

Even as Marlins equipment managers packed trucks with bats, baseballs, helmets and jerseys on Monday and headed north to Viera and spring training, the fate of their jobs lay in the hands of Major League Baseball owners, who are to vote today on the long-awaited sale of the team.

Owners are to vote via conference call this afternoon on the sale of the Marlins from John Henry to Montreal Expos owner Jeffrey Loria and his Montreal investors for $158.5 million. And in an unprecedented move, owners are to vote on spending $120 million to buy the Expos from Loria, who will also receive a $38.5 million loan from baseball to complete his purchase of the Marlins.

Henry leads a group that was approved last month to buy the Boston Red Sox for $700 million. MLB is forming a corporation and putting together a management team that is to include former Anaheim Angels President Tony Tavares and baseball's vice president of on-field operations, Frank Robinson, to run the Expos until the team can be folded or moved -- perhaps as soon as next season.

The vote on the Marlins sale only formalizes an ownership change that has been expected for months. The Marlins' offseason of uncertainty has employees wondering about their jobs and has significantly slowed season-ticket sales and put business plans on hold.

Baseball officials hope the sale will close by week's end so new ownership can begin running the team. The Marlins' spring training begins Friday.

"If approval comes, which obviously we hope it does, we will have some sort of announcement that will start to address some of the issues," outgoing Expos executive vice president David Samson said Monday.

Samson will likely become the Marlins' president. Loria, a New York art dealer, is expected to bring many of his Expos operations officials and perhaps a handful of business-side employees to the Marlins.

"We need to start naming people," Samson said. "We need to start . . . speaking with employees. We need to get the season going as soon as possible, and by that I mean Friday, when pitchers and catchers report."

Expos Manager Jeff Torborg is expected to join the Marlins for spring training.

The uncertainty has been particularly bitter for employees because Henry announced in November that their jobs would be safe for 2002.

Now Henry says even he couldn't have imagined such a painful situation.

"Whether you're a player or an owner, not everything is within your control," Henry said in an e-mail to South Florida news media. "The uncertainty is something everyone in our organization has had to deal with for a very long time. It has consistently upset me as much as anyone. Being unable on my own to provide certainty as to how the process would unfold has been painful."

Henry has had an agreement to sell the Marlins to Loria since November.